Lisa Martin

Thinking back to Chapter 1, we know categorization is one of the LATCH methods for organizing information.

Categorizing content is a process of criteria matching, which means we have to answer two questions:

What are the criteria for the category?
Does the content match the criteria?

In real life, we don’t perfectly define all categories up front, then assess content against that rigid structure one piece at a time. The process of categorization is much more fluid—we move back and forth between defining the criteria and vetting the criteria, seeing how the details fit in the system and how the system must change to accommodate details

Users coming to your site—especially new users—don’t necessarily know the big picture of your system or the granular details of the content within it. They may see your site as an overwhelming space with too many choices, or a narrow alley with few visible pathways. They don’t know where you’ve put the peanut butter.

What do they care about?

Audience-based navigation is rarely the right solution. Structurally, it’s better to examine what users need, rather than who they are; to focus on their actions, rather than their personas.

Words like nominate, recruit, support, mentor, hire, join, donate, inspire: these could be traced to tasks that users wanted to accomplish on the site.

What does the business want to accomplish?

Users don’t care how your business teams function. They just want to complete their tasks.

Your user research can help: look for the words (especially the verbs!) that people use when interacting with your site or product, then mirror their language back to them